According to a 2010 New York Times article, some larger companies are interested in retrofitting ethanol-production facilities to make way for butanol — a testament to some of its perceived advantages. And those benefits just keep racking up. While it used to be significantly less economically viable to produce butanol (compared to ethanol), that's changing thanks to developing technologies, such as better fermentation techniques.

"I think you'll be seeing a lot of butanol over the next 10 years," Harris says. "There's no reason to keep producing ethanol — it's not good for the environment, it's not good for food prices, it's not good for your engine. We need to switch over to other renewable fuels that can plug into existing infrastructure."

CORRECTION
The original version of this article mistakenly stated that the College of the Atlantic’s food waste is shipped off Mount Desert Island to be incinerated. In fact, the college composts all its food waste on-site — it’s the town of Bar Harbor that trucks its waste off the island.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE | July 24, 2014 When three theater companies, all within a one-hour drive of Portland, choose to present the same Shakespeare play on overlapping dates, you have to wonder what about that particular show resonates with this particular moment.

CHECKING IN: THE NEW GUARD AND THE WRITER'S HOTEL | July 11, 2014 Former Mainer Shanna McNair started The New Guard, an independent, multi-genre literary review, in order to exalt the writer, no matter if that writer was well-established or just starting out.

NO TAR SANDS | July 10, 2014 “People’s feelings are clear...they don’t want to be known as the tar sands capitol of the United States."